It Begins and Ends in Morningside
by Jambammer
Summary: There's something about this town that just isn't right... and it's not just the 31 people who go missing every 30 years.
1. Welcome To Morningside

A/N: Alright, so this is set in early season 5. Ish. I may play around with things a bit, we'll see how it goes. Also, I'm not sure if there is a town called Morningside in Montana. There is in the province I'm from (I'm Canadian) and I fell in love with the name some time ago.

* * *

><p>"So fill me in on the details?" Dean's eyes watched the road, trying to keep them in focus. It was amazing what a fourteen hour driving day did to a person, and not the good sort of amazing either. He blinked and did his best to stifle a yawn.<p>

Beside him, his brother dug around his seat for his flashlight. "Sure, just a sec." There was a click, and suddenly the interior car wasn't quite so dark. "Town of Morningside, Montana. Population is roughly two thousand people."

"Sounds _charming._"

"Yeah, well it's not every thirty years or so in May. A person goes missing every day of the month. Sometimes the bodies are recovered, sometimes…"

"They're never seen again," Dean surmised with a nod. "You thinking Wendigo?"

Sam shrugged. "It's possible I guess, there's enough forest around."

"But…"

"Well, Wendigos are usually more predictable when it comes to their hunting," Sam replied, leafing through the papers on his lap.

"What, a specific month's not predictable enough for you?"

"They usually have a set amount of years in between hunts. Twenty years, twenty one years, twenty two years, and so on. This thing… I dunno man, it seems pretty random. One attack was twenty seven years after the previous attack, which had happened thirty two years after the attack before that. Besides, have you ever heard of a Wendigo leaving bodies out in the open?" He looked to his older brother whose expression was answer enough. He shrugged. "Honestly, it could be anything at this point."

"So whatever it is is snatching thirty one people every thirty some years. My question is why do people still live in this freakin' town?" Dean wondered aloud.

"That's the thing, it doesn't take just townsfolk," Sam explained. "It takes people from the surrounding area as well."

"So if you're out for a midnight stroll in the forest…"

"Or just driving through, yup. You're in danger. That's why no one's really noticed this; if a tourist drives through the town and doesn't come back, who in the town would notice?" Dean gave a slight nod, admitting this was true. "And a whole new generation has time to grow up during the quiet years. It's possible no one's really put this together yet."

"No one except Bobby," Dean answered, smirk tugging at his mouth. He sighed and shifted in his seat. "What're we doin', Sammy?"

"We're… hunting?"

"That's not what I mean. We've got both angels and demons on our tails and the whole damn world is ending, and we're out _hunting_ like nothin's going on?" A bitter laugh touched his last words.

"The angels can't find us."

"No, but the demons sure can! What if this is a trap?"

"Pretty elaborate trap that would have been in the making for the past two hundred years at least." Dean didn't answer this, but kept his eyes fixated on the road. Sam shook his head. "Look, I know the situation's bad, and it's my fault…"

"Sam."

"No, just let me finish. It's bad, okay, I know that. But it's going to get worse. There's nothing we can do about it, not yet anyways. And we can't do it unless we can work together. Work together _properly._ This'll be good for us to work on that, and save a few people before everything hits." He stared intently at his brother. "What do you say?"

"Yeah, okay," the elder replied gruffly, and the younger wasn't sure he meant it. "You're right," Dean agreed before clearing his throat. "So," he changed the subject, "small town in the middle of nowhere. What do you think the chances are of the motel _not_ being crummy?"

Sam laughed. "Not very good, I'd say."

Dean grunted and nodded. "Yeah, thought as much."

* * *

><p>"Lee Williams?" Sam asked with a grin as his brother unlocked the door to their room.<p>

"What about it?" Dean asked in reply, flicking on the light and surveying the room. "Jeeze, this is right out of the 70's."

"Small town, motel's probably not their priority," Sam replied, following his brother in. "It's just, that's the most normal sounding name I think I've ever heard you use."

The elder shrugged. "I needed something to put down, I was in a hurry so I went for generic. Sue me." He dropped down wearily to the bed. The mattress squealed back. "I think this might be from the 70s yet too."

Sam gave his bed a wary look.

Dean unlaced his boots, exhaustion catching up with him. "We'll start diggin' first thing. It's what, the third?"

"Fourth now," Sam corrected, gesturing to the clock. 2:00AM. "I've got the names of the first victim's family and…"

"Sammy," Dean cut in, holding up his hand. "Morning."

Sam glanced down at the papers he held and the bag slung over his shoulder. "Right. Yeah."

"And we're stopping for breakfast first."

A half-hearted smile tugged at Sam's lips. "Yeah, okay."

After slipping a gun under his pillow, Dean lay back against the surprisingly soft surface and was fast asleep before Sam had taken his coat off.

* * *

><p>"Right, so who was the first one taken?" Dean asked between bites.<p>

"Clara White," Sam answered, passing a newspaper clipping across the table to his brother. "Eighteen years old." Dean looked down at the picture smiling back; pretty blonde girl. Maybe it made him shallow – hell, he _knew _it did – but he hated it when they were young and pretty. Just didn't seem right. "She was headed home from a friend's house after midnight of April 30th, or…"

"May first," Dean finished, and Sam nodded. "She looks a bit like Jo."

"Yeah, I thought so too."

"So what. She just never made it home?"

Sam picked up his coffee mug. "Seems that way. No witnesses."

"What about traffic cameras?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Dean, we're in a town with a population of two thousand."

"Right. No traffic cameras. Great," he shoved a forkful of sausage into his mouth and shook his head. "Why do these things always happen in the middle of freakin' nowhere?"

From the counter, the waitress gave him a dirty look. Dean flashed her a quick smile before ducking his head away.

"I think because they're in the middle of nowhere. If it were somewhere like New York, it'd be a big deal. International media coverage. Where as here," he cast his eyes around the smoky diner and shrugged. "No one really cares."

"Right. Who gives a crap about some dingy little hick town?" The people who lived there, apparently. Dean pretended not to notice the looks he was getting as he took a drink of his coffee. "So this girl's family."

"She lived with her mother, Amy, couldn't find anything about extended family, and her father died six years ago," Sam explained. "Maybe her behavior changed in the last few weeks, or maybe we'll find something to link her to the other victims."

"Who're they?"

Sam pursed his lips. "I don't know yet. Not townsfolk."

"Great. Well, gotta start somewhere I guess."

* * *

><p>"This place looks nice," Dean commented, walking up the pathway to the white porch of the house. It was a quaint little building, obviously a few decades old. Vines climbed their way to the roof along the sides, but it somehow held a quiet charm.<p>

"Since when are you interested in real estate?" Sam asked back.

"I'm not!" Dean replied defensively, straightening his tie. "I'm just sayin', it's a nice place. Compared to the rest of the town."

Sam had to agree with that. Something about the town made him uneasy, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly it was. Instead, he pushed the thought from his mind and pushed the doorbell.

"Mrs. White?" Sam called out after they had waited a moment and were met with silence from inside the home.

"Mrs. White, FBI," Dean shouted, but again the brothers were met with silence.

Dean reached into his pocket for his lock picks, but his brother grabbed the doorknob and turned it. The door opened without protest.

"Small towns," Sam said with a shake of his head. "No one locks their doors."

"They should really start," Dean replied, pulling out his gun.

"No kidding." He gestured with his own gun at the table. "She didn't leave the house. Not willingly." A women's purse sat on top, and a quick look in revealed a wallet, and car keys.

A quick scope of the house revealed something much more grim.

"Are those… claw marks?" Dean asked as his younger brother knelt down by the doorframe, studying the markings.

"Yeah, I'd say so," Sam agreed, "but they're not demonic. Dean, I think these were made by human nails."

"She was dragged out the back door, but damned if she didn't try to fight it every step of the way."

Sam looked up at him. "I think we've found another victim."


	2. Freakin' Floral Print

"House is clean," Dean reported with a shrug, standing in the doorway of the room his brother was occupied with searching. "No sulfur, nothin'. Whatever this thing is, it's not demonic."

"Someone here was afraid of something," his younger brother mused.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at your feet."

At first, he didn't see anything but the white carpet (there was so much white in this house, it was practically blinding) but crouching down, the line of white dust became more apparent. "Salt."

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "It lines the entire room."

"So the daughter knew about what lurks in the dark?" Dean asked, looking up at his brother. "You think she was a hunter?"

"Daughter's room is down the hall," the younger replied grimly.

"Well Mom's room is in the basement," Dean replied, "so who's staying here?"

"Good question," Sam replied, leafing through a journal on the night table. "This belongs to Clara though. She talks about leaving the town behind her and becoming an actress."

"Any chance she just picked up and left?" Sam shook his head. "Didn't think so."

The room had clearly been in use, and recently. The bed unmade, clothing scattered – women's clothes, well worn and dirty, not like the ones in the other room that were more suited to a wannabe actress –, a glass of milk that hadn't yet soured sitting under the bed near a jar of what had to be holy water. "Whoever it is staying here, I think they _are_ a hunter."

"It's May fourth, and people go missing a little after midnight typically." Dean got to his feet. "Think we might have found a third victim?"

"Maybe," Sam closed the journal but kept it in his hands. "It doesn't make sense. No one's gone missing from the same house before. Not even from the same family. It's usually people who live alone, or would have the possibility of going off on their own without telling anyone."

"Like an eighteen year old girl sick of small town life."

"Exactly."

"I'm guessing it wouldn't take too kindly to a hunter drifting through town."

"Doesn't seem like it," Sam nodded to the house outside the bedroom window. "We know that someone was taken from here…"

"And they didn't go quietly."

"Think the neighbours heard anything?"

Had the attacker been human, and this been a normal kidnapping, he would have said yes, they would have had to be dead to _not_ have heard anything. "Maybe."

* * *

><p>"Hey Sam," Dean said as they walked up the side walk. His brother looked over his shoulder. "May the fourth be with you." Sam looked forward again and rolled his eyes. "Get it? May…"<p>

"I got it. That's not funny."

Dean grinned. "It's a little funny."

Their conversation was cut short, much to Sam's relief, by the front door opening as they approached. An elderly woman in her early seventies dusted her hands on the old apron she was wearing. "Can I help you, gentlemen?"

The elder cleared his throat. "Good afternoon, Ma'am. We're with the FBI." The two held up their fake badges. "I'm Agent Morse, this is my partner Agent Steinhardt. We need to ask you some questions, if that's all right."

The woman looked at the two of them worriedly, tucking a strand of white hair behind her ear. The rest of it remained trapped in the bun she wore it in. "Oh my, is this about poor Clara?"

Sam nodded, his voice and eyes oozing enough sympathy to make his brother want to gag. "Yes, we're looking into her disappearance. We were hoping you might be able to shed some light on a few things for us."

She opened the door fully and waved them in. "Come on inside and I'll tell you everything I told that reporter yesterday."

The brothers exchanged looks. "Reporter?" Dean asked, voicing what they were both thinking; _the hunter_.

The woman nodded. "Lovely young woman."

It was a shot in the dark, but Sam decided to take it. "Did you get her name? We may want to contact her."

"Let me see… Kim, I believe," the woman mused to herself, leading the two men into a small living room. "What was her last name? Mathews… no… Mark?"

"Luke?" Dean asked under his breath, and received an elbow in his ribcage as he and his brother took a seat.

"Martins! That was it," the woman nodded. "Kim Martins. I'll just get you gentlemen some lemonade."

"Oh that's really … not necessary…" Sam trailed off, noticing the woman had disappeared into another room.

The elder Winchester studied the room and grimaced. "Is everything in this town stuck forty to fifty years behind? Dude, I've never seen so much freakin' floral print in my life."

There was a lot of it; the curtains, the cloth on the coffee table, the couch they were sitting on… and none of it was the same pattern. Sam shrugged. "Small town, been here for ages, what do you expect?" Taking the brief moment they were alone as an opportunity, he lowered his voice. "Thoughts on the reporter?"

"The hunter, has to be," Dean replied, and the younger nodded. "You think _my_ name was generic? Kim Martins. That's pretty bad."

"Yeah, it's gotta be fake," Sam agreed.

"Do you think she's still out there?"

The younger sighed. "I hope so." This seemed suddenly too big for the two of them to handle on their own.

Then again, it was nothing compared to the looming apocalypse.

* * *

><p><p>

"When she was a little girl, Clara used to play in my garden," Mrs. Erikson recalled fondly, passing a picture of a muddy child to Dean, who barely glanced at it before passing it to Sam. "I think she grew tired of this place and left. She'd wanted to for some time, she and her mother both." Her eyes creased in worry. "You think something happened to Amy?"

Dean cleared his throat. "We, uh, we've been looking for her but there's no sign. We wondered if perhaps you've heard anything in the past few days." He tried to give her a reassuring smile. "Anything strange… or just something you don't normally hear from their house?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, not a thing."

"Sorry, Mrs. Erikson, but did you say that Amy had wanted to leave too?" Sam pressed.

"Yes," she nodded, her eyes distant. "She never really liked it here, you see. Dalton, Clara's father, was the one who grew up here. Amy only moved for him, and that was just after Clara was born. Since his passing, Amy was always threatening to go back to the city. Which city, I don't know. She only ever called it 'the city.'"

"Are you familiar with any other missing persons' cases?" Dean asked.

"Morningside _is_ in the middle of a forest," she pointed out with a kind but weary smile. "Plenty of predators living out there. Every now and then, yes, we do have a case of a disappearance. Bears, we think." She paled. "You don't think Amy and Clara…"

"No, no," Sam cut in, reassuring her. "We're going to investigate their disappearances as closely as we can, but we don't believe it to be an animal attack."

Dean couldn't shake the feeling that the victims would be much better off if it _was_ a bear attack.

* * *

><p>"Well that was enlightening," Dean said sarcastically as he finished his keys out of his pocket.<p>

"Actually, it was," Sam corrected, leaning against the Impala. "I think I've worked out the link."

"Oh?" His brother looked intrigued.

"The victims are those who are prone to leaving," Sam explained. "Clara wanted to leave to become an actress, her mother wanted to go 'back to the city…."

"Right. What about the hunter?"

The younger shrugged. "Maybe she decided to leave the town to chase down a lead and the whatever it is didn't like it?"

Dean slid the key into the lock and pulled his door open. "You think it's trying to stop people from leaving?" He surmised, pushing the lock to open the passenger door.

"Makes sense with the victims so far," Sam replied, pulling his door open and sliding in. Once his brother was in the car, he continued. "If you've got another theory, let's hear it."

"Why only in May? And why every thirty some years?" Dean asked aloud, knowing full well neither of them had the answers. "I don't get it, Sammy. Ghosts – if that's what we're dealing with – have patterns. Monsters have patterns. This… this is too random."

"Do you think… do you think it might _not_ be anything…" He'd tried to shake the idea from his mind earlier, but it still nagged at him. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to say it. "Could it be _human_? I mean, the house came back _clean._ No sulfur, no EMF… Nothing."

Dean shivered at the thought and started the car. "I hope not. I say we start scanning the town for EMF."

"And then what? Wait for the next victim?"

"No, we hope that the fourth is strong with us," Dean grinned at his brother, who groaned in response.

"Are you really going to be making _Star Wars_ puns the rest of the day?" Sam asked, sounding as if the very thought gave him pain.

His brother beamed. "Oh yeah."


	3. Stay

"What was that name again?"

"Kim Martins," Sam repeated into the cell phone, walking down the middle of the sidewalk and keeping an eye on the reader he held in front of him.

"Kim Martins." A short silence followed on the other line before Bobby finally replied. "No, can't say I've heard of any hunters by that name."

Sam nodded, despite the fact he was on the phone. "Right. We figured it's probably an alias, but I thought I'd check just in case."

"I'll make a few calls and see if anyone's heard of her, or knows anything at all. You gotta description?"

"Yeah," he stopped walking and pressed his shoulder against the phone, using his newly freed hand to dig out his notepad. "Shoulder length brown hair, probably grey or blue eyes, and between 5'5 to 5'7."

"Okay, got anything _useful_?"

"Sorry Bobby, that's the best we got," he slipped the small booklet back into his pocket and resumed walking. "We've only come across one witness who's encountered her so far, and that was the best description she could give us. We do think she's in trouble, if she's not already dead, so any information would be great."

A heavy sigh came from the other line. "That could be darned near anybody, but I'll see what I can come up with."

"Thanks Bobby." Ending the call, he flipped through his contacts and selected one.

"He know anything?" Dean's voice asked when he picked up.

"No," Sam replied, watching the first two or three red lights dance back and forth. "I've got mild readings all over my side of the town, but nothing substantial. What about you?"

Dean watched his own reader flicker. "Nothin' so far. Maybe this thing isn't a spirit."

"Yeah," the younger had to agree. "I talked with the Sheriff's department, and guess what the disappearances have been labeled as?"

"Animal attacks."

"Yup."

"Think they're in on it – whatever _it_ is?"

"Hard to say," Sam scanned the area around him, looking for power lines that might have been affecting his readings. He couldn't see any, but it was a small town – there were bound to be some. "Meet back at the motel?"

"Sounds good. Oh, your way there pick up dinner on, young Padawan. Forget pie, die you will."

"Funny you would pick the shortest character to imitate…"

"Shut up." A click followed. Sam laughed to himself.

* * *

><p>Of all the strange things he'd seen throughout his years as a hunter, Dean was fairly certain that a pretty girl sitting against the door of their motel room, waiting for them to get back was definitely one of the strangest. Pleasant strange.<p>

"Can I help you?"

It's only after he's approached her that the thought occurs that she may be the one grabbing people. Oops.

She slowly rises to her feet, looking him over with apprehensive eyes. Pretty, _blue_ apprehensive eyes, he noted before scolding himself for possibly finding a monster attractive. He looked her over as well. Aside from the fact that he liked how her jeans hugged her hips, he noticed she was quite unarmed.

Still, best to keep his guard up. Sam would never let him hear the end of it if he was taken down by a woman a full head shorter than he was.

"You're a hunter?"

He couldn't tell if it was a statement or a question, but it was clear she wanted some kind of response. "Who's asking?"

"You are, then," she nodded to herself, looking him over once more. "You certainly don't look like any hunter I've seen. Most of them aren't much to look at."

"I moisturize," he replied dryly. "Who are you?"

She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Dean realized it just before the words left her mouth. "My name is Kim Martins. You're infringing on my case."

"Prepare to die?" He quipped, and a look of disgust crossed her face.

"Don't quote that movie at me; it was terrible."

"You started it, _and_ you recognized the quote."

"You're still working my case." She crossed her arms. "I was here first."

"Look, there's no point in arguing this outside for everyone to hear. Let's at least pretend we have some privacy and discuss this inside," he suggested, fishing his room key from his pocket, keeping an eye on her.

Kim shrugged. "Alright. I can agree to that. I didn't really want to have this discussion out here anyways."

Before he could ask why she hadn't just gone inside, Dean saw the lock. To an untrained eye, there was nothing wrong with it. To his eye, it was clear it had been tampered with. He raised an eyebrow at her. "What, you got bored of picking the lock and just decided to wait?"

Kim looked down at the ground and mumbled something he couldn't quite make out.

"What was that?"

"I said I couldn't get it," she replied hotly, looking away and clearly trying to ignore the fact that her cheeks were burning.

Oh, this was rich. "You couldn't get it?" His eyes darted back to the lock. "That has to be one of the simplest I've seen. I could open it with my eyes closed."

Her eyes narrowed. "Good for you," she replied darkly. "I'm _thrilled_ to see you have _such_ a God-given talent."

Dean gave her the smuggest smile he could manage. "God's got nothin' to do with it. Some of us got it, sweetheart, and _some_ of us _don't._"

* * *

><p>Sam's phone always seemed to go off at the most inopportune time, the latest being as he trudged back to the motel with both hands occupied with bags. After a hurried reorganizing – and of course, everything went slower when you were in a hurry – he managed to dig his phone from his pocket and answered it before checking the caller ID.<p>

"Hello?"

"Think I've dug up something about that hunter for you."

Sam let out a breath of relief. Not that anything Bobby'd found out about her would likely help them too much, but he wanted to know _who_ it was they were looking for. "What'd you find out?"

"Namely that she's not someone you want to tangle with."

"That good of a hunter, huh?"

Bobby snorted. "That _bad_ of one."

Sam stopped walking. "Wait, what?"

"She's a bad hunter, one of the worst from what I've been able to gather. No one's quite sure why she got into it – hell, no one's quite sure why she's even still _alive_," Bobby added. _If she is,_ Sam added to himself.

It sounded comical, truthfully. Sam couldn't quite keep the chuckle from slipping into his voice. "So why do we need to stay away from her?"

"I know it looks it on the surface, but this ain' funny, boy," Bobby growled back. "She's gotten a lotta good folk hurt – a lot of _good_ _hunters._"

Sam swallowed. "Oh." He took a deep breath and tried to reorganize his thoughts. "Okay, so if we find her, what do you want us to do?"

"Lock her up and finish the job," the tone of the voice on the other line sounded as though this should have been obvious. "Once you take care of whatever's going on in that god forsaken town, you get her out of this life, you hear? I don' care what it takes. You get her out of this life, and you convince her to stay out."

He made it sound so easy. "We'll do our best," he promised.

"You morons be careful."

"We will. Thanks Bobby."

He'd only just hung up when it started. Soft at first, like a gentle breeze rustling the tree leaves. One singular word became distinguishable, a whisper at first and escalated.

_Stay._

_Stay._

_STAY._

_STAY._

_STAY!_

His heart raced, and he looked around wildly, trying to pinpoint the sound. It was everywhere, surrounding and encasing him._ Keep calm, Sam,_ he had to remind himself. _Stay calm._

The sunlight was quickly disappearing behind the trees.

Sam decided to run as fast as his legs would carry him in order to be back at the motel before it disappeared completely.

**_STAY!_**


End file.
